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i.
It's hard not to get pissed off when a bunch of brats think they know so much better than her.
And maybe there's nothing inherently wrong with having another servant, so she lets herself be persuaded to at least look for a knight. But she's doing it her way, as she always does.
After all, if her right-hand man can't keep up with her whims, what even is the point?
ii.
She's not feeling what she thinks she's supposed to be feeling towards Willmesh.
When he rushes to her side and urges her to hide, all she sees is a child who won't be able to keep up with her. He'll get overwhelmed, she's sure of it. But then, why is he even here? Why even try? Maybe she just needs to get to know him better?
"Where's the other one? Kurode, right?"
He explains. And instead of hiding, just as he asks, she finds herself leaning over the nearest window, one from where she can see her people scurrying away. Yet there's a child there, in the middle of the chaos. Two of them, even. Neither one of them her own.
So it probably means something, that she can't take her eyes off Kurode. Unlike Myunna, he doesn't even try to use magic. But he doesn't run away.
She can't let someone like that go, right?
"I need a pen," she says after everything's over, much to Willmesh's bewilderment.
She hops off the sill and rushes off to her office.
iii.
She messages Keroppi because asking My Mel is out of the question. Not when she has something to prove. She could probably ask Kitty but she doesn't have her number. Does she even have a phone?
"It's like I can tell him anything!" he messages back, and she could almost hear his voice full of unbridled excitement. "I don't always get what Pikero's saying, but every day with him is fun!"
She stares at the words. Rolls over her bed in thought. Can she tell either of them anything? Probably. She can probably talk Randall's ear off while she's at it too. But it doesn't feel the same.
"How's that any different from your other subjects?" she types.
"It just feels different, I guess? Sorry, Kuromi-chan. I'm not very good at explaining it."
"It's fine," because maybe it's just something she has to figure out on her own.
She pauses, wondering if it's inappropriate considering their current responsibilities and the crisis at hand. But it's a quiet night, as quiet as her kingdom can ever get, and Keroppi's replies have been as quick as they've always been. "Game night?"
"Yeah! Let's do it!"
iv.
She also considers asking Badtz-maru, but, before she hits send, she remembers the rumors about his knight just leaving all of a sudden.
Maybe one of them will leave her.
Maybe it will be Willmesh.
She's not sure what to feel about that.
Aren't the knights supposed to love them without asking for anything in return? So why would any of them leave?
Then again, that sounds stupid. She loves her knights. She's sure she does. Isn't that enough?
v.
Kurode brings back pancakes and a story about being thrown into a cage.
He's smiling as he tells her about Kiki's and Lala's knights, but her hand freezes in midair, the pancake plopping back onto her plate as he nonchalantly inserts a line in there somewhere about him having "barely done anything, really". Without hesitation. As if saying that water is wet and fish swim.
She doesn't even have time to exchange glances with Willmesh before he softly interjects, "That's not true, Kurode-kun. You reached Klark-kun. I don't think I could have."
Kurode tries to downplay it again, because of course he does, but she notes how pinker his face seems to be.
She goes back to finishing her pancakes with satisfaction.
Maybe all they need is time. She never did ask Keroppi how quickly he realized that his knight was the one.
vi.
"We need to figure out the budget, the logistics, the…everything!" Kurode says as he paces in front of her desk. He's waving a hand around while peering at his tablet.
"Can't we just let everyone do whatever they want?" Randall says from the swivel chair he's claimed as his own. She should probably tell him to sit up straight, but she's hardly one to talk.
"No!" Kurode wails, and it shouldn't be that funny but it is. "There needs to be a balance! And restrictions! Rules are there for safety! What if someone decides to build a two-storey booth to make theirs easier to stand out?"
"I dunno, man. I'd personally love to see that," Randall says as he sinks comfortably into his chair.
Kurode stops pacing, if only to stare at her while gesturing wildly at Randall, as if to say, "See? See!?"
She just laughs.
"Maybe we can benchmark with Myunna-kun and go from there?" Willmesh offers from where he's pressed himself against a corner of the room.
"Myunna!" Kurode says before typing furiously on his tablet. "A first-aid tent!"
She glances at Willmesh, who's trying very hard to hide a smile behind his scarf. She's allowed to be proud that she can tell, right? It's taken a while, but she likes to think that she can read him better now.
"I have the budget right here. Sit down before you wear down my carpet. I just bought that, you know."
vii.
Kurode's smile doesn't quite reach his eyes when he tells her about Cielomort's offer. He's trying his best to hide it, to show that he's determined to grow, but, somewhere in there, she can sense a hint of defeat, and she can feel rage building up inside her.
It should be reassuring when Willmesh tells her that he'll keep an eye on Kurode. It should be.
She shouldn't be doubting him. Not when it was all starting to go so well.
But why else would he refuse to look her in the eyes?
viii.
"Talk to me!!!" she types, every letter pressed with unrestrained impatience.
"Maybe that Cielomort guy's keepin' him busy," Randall says as he takes away her empty plate. The dining hall's never really been fully quiet even after Kurode left, but the absence of a critical source of common sense has become noticeable after a week. Randall tries, when it suits him. "Or maybe he's, I dunno, maybe he's sick. Knocked himself out after all that trainin' he keeps on doin'? I sure hope not, but ya never know, ya know?"
That gives her pause. Kurode's always been hardworking. That's one of the many things she likes about him. But she wouldn't be surprised if he finally overdid it.
It's not the first time she feels irritated over Willmesh's lack of affinity with technology.
"I'm sure there's a good reason, Kuromi-sama," Randall says as she sighs and rests her head on the table.
"There better be," she mutters, ignoring the nagging thought that maybe, after being exposed to someone as sweet as Cinnamon, Kurode's been reevaluating having someone like her as a lord.
But that's stupid.
She spends the rest of the day convincing herself that everything is fine and that her knights would come back to her eventually.
ix.
She thinks she's dreaming, at first, but she really should have trusted her instincts that it's never been him. Willmesh has never been the one. But she held the trials and he won. Technically. Because Kurode chose protecting her people over winning some stupid game, and here they are.
She yells at Willmesh. It's the only thing she can do.
But she's also at fault, in a way. She should have made a proper choice. Keroppi's never heard of a lord with two Fragarian Knights before and none of the texts she could find contained records of anything similar either.
She's been greedy. Selfish, as always.
She rages about having to explain to her citizens that one of their knights is leaving them, about being insulted, about being made a fool.
She doesn't tell Willmesh that she's glad it's him who's never been hers. Not Kurode.
x.
Her vision blurs when she reads "My Melody Kingdom" and she can't find her tablet and the block button fast enough.
Kurode's never been hers either.
xi.
"Do you want me to come visit?" Keroppi asks as she sobs into their call. She needs to hear somebody else's voice aside from the one in her head telling her that she messed everything up.
"Don't be stupid," she manages.
"Just a quick hop between gates," he says, and she's grateful. She really is.
"You can't leave your kingdom now, Keroppi," she says, her voice cracking. "Not now. Just…just listen. 'Cause I'm gonna be annoying."
"Okay," he says, and he does. He listens patiently when she cries about knowing that she could never have a knight, not the kind that everyone always talks about. The kind that would devote their life and love to her because who would?
She's always been too much while also not being enough. And maybe she needs to slow down. Maybe she needs to be nicer and sweeter like My Mel so they would have stayed. And she knows it sounds stupid the moment the words tumble out, because she doesn't have to make herself smaller just to get someone to love her that much, does she? That wasn't what Kitty meant when she said that she wanted everyone to get along either, right?
When she pauses to breathe, she hears sniffling from the other end, and it's the quietest thing, but she can tell. "I'm sorry, Kuromi-chan," Keroppi says, and she cries louder.
She continues crying until there's nothing but exhaustion left. "Sorry," she mutters as she rolls on her back and stares at the ceiling. "That's probably not how you imagined spending the evening, huh?"
"No worries! And, um, I don't know if this would help, but…."
"What?"
"I don't think you have to change anything to find the knight for you." There's a pause, then, quieter, he says, "I never told Pikero this, but, during the first few months of him being my official knight, I was a little worried that he'd become bored with me."
"What."
"He's super smart! I thought he could maybe do better."
She snorts at that.
"He still stayed though. And when I tried acting a little cooler so I'd be a better lord for him, he started panicking. The way he panics, at least. He thought I was sick and even made me rest for three days!"
"Sounds like a worrywart."
"He's the coolest! But Kuromi-chan, you're cool too! And I think the knight that's going to be for you will love you for who you are. Maybe…maybe he's still on his way to you right now."
"Or he's stuck in a tree somewhere," Kuromi says dryly.
"Yeah! But I'm sure he'll get to you! You just gotta be yourself!"
"Thanks, Keroppi," she says. She doesn't want the call to end there, so she gets him to tell her more about the games that his knight comes up with for him.
She doesn't tell him that, deep down, she doesn't want it to be anybody else. That there's maybe no point if it's not Kurode.
But that could be the attachment talking. Maybe she'll get over it.
xii.
Kurode doesn't give her enough time to compose herself. She hasn't had enough time to practice being unaffected. Then again, she's never been good at that. She hates that the tears just spill when she gets overwhelmed, and it's still the same thing when she runs through her castle's basement.
She hears him plead for her to please, please wait.
But she's terrified. What if he's just here to say something nice and comforting before he leaves for good? Something stupid about the problem not being her but him? That doesn't sound like the Kurode she knows, but has she ever really known him? She thought she was starting to know Willmesh, but she never really did.
She couldn't bear the same thought with Kurode.
She tries running again, but he says…he wants to apologize. And he does.
And…Keroppi never warned her about this part.
About the part where a knight tells you about how much they really, truly see you for who you are, about how much you have touched their life, about how they want to stay by your side despite, maybe even precisely, because of everything.
She'll yell at him later.
After she's done yelling at Kurode.
xiii.
"You can't take it back now," she says, finally letting herself relax after Kurode's Accolade. "You made your vow to me. You can't just decide to take it back once you find someone better."
He looks at her in mock offense. It's a refreshing look on him. "After all the mushy things I told you? Do I have to say everything all over again?"
"I'm just saying," she grumbles. "No matter how greedy I get, you can't take it back."
He stares at her long enough that she starts feeling self-conscious.
"What?" she says irritably.
"I don't mind you being greedy, Kuromi," Kurode says. "I'd be worried if you weren't."
Her face heats up at that. Waving her scepter, she says, "What's that supposed to mean!?"
"I'm just saying that you're the kind of lord who knows what you want and that you're not afraid to say it," he says, laughing. "That means I don't have to worry about playing guessing games with you, right?"
"Right," she says, huffing. "So you better pay attention."
Kurode smiles, the kind of smile that makes her want to tell the world that the knights themselves are worth protecting. Hers is, at least. "I'll do my best."
She knows he will. She no longer has any doubt.